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In real-world problem-solving tasks that many people call "complex" (like flying a jet, programming, fixing a car, fighting a fire - the type investigated by the naturalistic decision making community) what are the key characteristics that separate problem solving in these types of tasks and problem solving in "toy" or "experiment" tasks where one or two stimuli are presented to participants?

1 Answer
1

The complexity of the environment certainly is an issue. According to AI - A modern approach, the environment may be

observable / partly observable

deterministic / stochastic / strategic

episodic / sequential

static / dynamic

discrete / continuous

single agent / multiple agent

See also WikiDoc for a short overview.
In my oppinion, these criteria apply also to human problem
solving.

Another issue is the type of problem to be solved.
A measure for complexity may be the number of steps
that must be anticipated to solve the problem, e.g.
solving a chess endgame is more complex than solving
tic tac toe.